Because the Blue Ensign (Commonwealth
Ensign) was the official
flag and it's use by ordinary citizens was discouraged many people from
the Attorney General down used the Red Ensign as a de-facto Civil Flag.
It was not strictly correct, but it happened at every level of the
community.

In 1914 all three flags, the British
Union Flag, the Federal Flag and the Civil flag were all used. Some of
the best indications of how the soldiers themselves thought of the flags
is in the ensigns that are on display at the Australian War Memorial and
the RAAF Museum.

In the Australian War Memorial, the red ensigns on
display outnumber the blue ensigns in the World War I period by about 10
to 1.

Sub category
index

Opening of Federal
Parliament at Canberra, 9 May 1927 Note that the Australian flags are
Red Ensigns. There is some dispute as to whether this is accurate. Septimus
Power (1878–1951) Historic Memorials Collection, Canberra. Courtesy of
the Parliament House Art Collection, Department of Parliamentary
Services, Canberra ACT.

This 1916
"souvenir" tea towel depicting scenes from the Dardanelles
clearly shows an Australian Red Ensign.

Maryborough Victoria,
not Queensland.

This group of images
show the Red Ensign being used alongside the Union Jack in AIF
recruiting.

A WW1 Australian Red Ensign
overlaid with "The Famous Battlefields of the Australian
Forces".

Each of the stars is labelled with
a country or campaign name:

Gallipoli

Egypt

France

Flanders

New Guinea

Palestine

Cloth
embroidered with a King's crown with the British and Australian (Red
Ensign) flags on either side. The
crown is surrounded by a green wreath and two scrolls, one at the top
and one at the bottom.

These scrolls contain the words 'FOR
ENGLAND HOME AND BEAUTY/AUSTRALIA WILL BE THERE'.

Associated with 6311 Private Alfred
Samuel Smart. Smart enlisted on 6 April 1916 and served with 19
Battalion. He returned to Australia on 30 January 1918.

Title: Autographed
Australian red ensign carried by NX17521 Corporal W E Watson as a POW in
Greece, and later in New Guinea Maker: S Calder Ltd, Sydney Object type:
Flag Place made: Sydney Date made: 1939 Physical description: Wool
bunting; canvas; hemp Summary: NX17521 Corporal William Edward Watson
served with 6 Division AAOC and 7 Division Provost Company. He was
captured on Crete on 1 June 1941, shipped to Athens and then Salonika.
He escaped from Salonika on 29 June 1941, joined up with other POW
escapees and hid in the Greek mountains until 1942, when he successfully
escaped by boat to Turkey on 5 May 1942. Watson was discharged medically
unfit on his return to Australia and subsequently joined the American
Small Boats Division, serving in New Guinea. He was awarded the Military
Medal for 'courage and perseverance in escapes from POW camps'.

In 1914, Watson's father, who had served with a British Regiment before
emigrating to Australia, was farewelled by the Australian Attorney
General W M 'Billy' Hughes (later Prime Minister) as he returned to
Britain with other Imperial Reservists for service in the First World
War. Hughes presented Watson with an Australian red ensign which he
carried with him throughout the war. Watson claimed that it was the
first Australian flag to be flown in France during the war, and on his
safe return to Australia presented it to the Australian War Museum
(later War Memorial) for display. His son, W E Watson, asked that the
flag be returned to him to carry during his service in the Second World
War, but his request was refused.

Watson then applied to Billy Hughes,
who was again Attorney General, for another flag, and this red ensign is
the one that Hughes sent to him, together with the words, 'I would like
to say that it is my earnest prayer that you will be spared to carry it
triumphantly throughout this present conflict. You will bear it through
lands where the valorous tradition of the A.I.F. is a by-word. I know
that this glorious heritage will be safe in the keeping of Australia's
sons of the 2nd A.I.F.'. Watson junior carried it throughout his service
in Egypt, concealed it during his captivity in Crete and Greece, and
again carried it during his service in New Guinea

This ensign was presented
to the Imperial Reservists who left Australia in 1914, by the Honourable
W M 'Billy' Hughes, then Attorney General and later Prime Minister, and
personally handed to Corporal Edward Dawson Watson of the East
Lancashire Regiment. The Imperial Reservists were men who had recently
served with a British Regiment before emigrating to Australia. On the
outbreak of the First World War they were recalled to serve with their
old units and sailed in the first troop convoy to leave Australia.
Dawson took the flag to England and France, and carried it during the
retreat from Mons.

After a spell in England he took it back to France in
March 1917. Watson remained in France until the German Advance in March
1918, when he was wounded. He brought the flag back to Australia in
1919. Watson claimed that it was the was the first Australian flag to
fly in France during the First World War, however the NSW Volunteer
Ambulance Unit may also have carried one in France in 1914.

Watson presented the flag to the Australian War Museum (later War
Memorial) in 1925 on the condition that it be returned to him for each
year's Anzac Day march. He died shortly after Anzac Day in 1934 and the
flag has been part of the Memorial's permanent collection since this
date.

William Pearson Tewksbury,
a successful Melbourne businessman, conceived the idea of raising funds
for wounded Australian soldiers by raffling a flag autographed by the
world's most famous men, including national and war leaders, Field
Marshal Lord Kitchener, Prime Minister W M Hughes and General Monash.

The flag was sent around the world to obtain the signatures and 20,000
pounds was raised from the raffle. The flag was advertised as the
'Kitchener Flag'. It was won by a retired seaman who sold it to Edward
Solomon, a Melbourne philanthropist and collector, who had already
purchased other autographed flags at fund raising auctions for the war
effort. Solomon later presented his entire autographed flag collection,
which he had acquired during the First World War, to the Australian War
Memorial.

During the Second World War William Tewkesbury again raised funds for
wounded soldiers by raffling an autographed flag known as the 'Churchill
Flag', this time raising 28,000 pounds.

Printed cotton Australian red ensign
signed in black from 'The One Woman / One Recruit League'. Union Jack
has recipient's name, '25/14' and 'AU-REVOIR' applied in ink. Each of
the five stars of the Southern Cross are also signed: 'Bon Voyage', 'A
Speedy Return', 'To Dear Australia', 'May Victory be Yours', ' We are
proud of you'. The six pointed star is signed: 'As you carry this flag
into / far distant land / Remember kind thoughts / blessings, good
wishes / and God speed follow You / From / The One WOMAN / One RECRUIT
League'.

7441 Private Percy Vernon Barr, a
labourer of Mirboo North, Victoria, enlisted on 25 June 1917 at age 30
and embarked for overseas service aboard HMAT Nestor on 21 November 1917
as a member of the 25th reinforcements of the 14th Battalion. He was
wounded in France on 18 September 1918 and returned to Australia on 2
February 1919. This Red Ensign was presented to him upon his embarkation
by an anonymous donor simply signed as 'The One Woman One Recruit
League', for which no information exists. Speculatively, the 'The One
Woman One Recruit League' may have been his wife, Clara. Percy Barr
carried this flag with him during his active service in France and his
return to Australia. It remained a significant relic for his family. His
grandson Ross recalls that it was used during the Royal visit to
Australia in 1954, when he and some mates travelled some 60 km from
Korumburra to Warragul in the back of a ute to see the Queen, waving
this flag, which was wired to a rough pole. The subsequent repairs were
made by Ross's mother on a sewing machine.

Associated with 713 Private Percival
James Bradshaw, 6 Battalion AIF. He enlisted on 24 February 1917, served
on the Western Front, and returned to Australia on 13 July 1919. He
acquired the mascot from the battalion sergeants' mess when he was an
orderly.

NX55941 Coproral Edward Gordon Patrick
'Pat' Sullivan was born in Deniliquin, NSW, in 1902. He enlisted for
service in the Second Word War on 1 July 1940 and was assigned to 2/18
Battalion. The battalion sailed to Malaya with 8 Division and
subsequently took part in the fight against the Japanese before the fall
of Singapore in February 1942, when all the survivors were taken
prisoner. Sullivan quickly realised that he would need a hobby to occupy
his mind rather than giving way to depression. A friend from 2/9 Field
Ambulance gave him a bag of embroidery cottons he had found during the
fighting in Singapore. Another prisoner showed him some basic embroidery
stitches and helped him with his first attempts at needlework. All the
designs on his embroideries were his own work. The Commonwealth Bank
cash bag came from the paymaster of 2/18 Battalion. Sullivan intended
this bag to be an embroiderer's work bag after he had completed it. Work
on the bag took several months to complete. A cushion cover and a
tablecloth were the first works to be finished. Sullivan had a single
needle which he carried in an improvised bamboo case. His embroidery was
carried out in spare time when he was not required to work by the
Japanese, both in Changi and on the Burma-Thailand Railway. A British
officer intervened when the Japanese attempted to confiscate one of the
embroideries Sullivan was working on, and fellow Australians also helped
to conceal his work during other Japanese searches.

NX3048 Sergeant Richard Sydney Turner was
born in Sydney in 1916. He enlisted on 28 October 1939 and served with 6
Division Supply Column, Australian Army Service Corps. After service in
Africa he was captured by the Germans near Megara during the Greek
campaign in June 1941, but escaped from the train taking him to Germany.
He was initially sheltered by the Greeks but this became too dangerous
when Italian troops offered large rewards for the capture of Allied
soldiers and threatened to shoot anyone harbouring them. Turner and a
companion hid in the mountains south of Thessaly during the winter of
1941-1942. Weak from malnutrition and malaria he was considering of
giving himself up when he met Ioannis Kallinikos from the village of
Livanatas, who sheltered him for the next year and a half. Turner joined
the Greek resistance in the summer of 1943 and led a band of fifty Greek
andartes. He later joined the British Military Mission in Greece (Force
133), which operated behind German lines. He was awarded the Military
Medal for his endurance and service in Greece. Turner was killed by
Greek communist insurgents, during the civil war which broke out in
Greece following the withdrawal of the Axis forces, on 17 December 1944
while in a truck on his way to Athens airport to be repatriated to
Australia. Turner carried this small flag throughout his service in
North Africa and Greece.

PORT PHILLIP BAY, VIC.
1953. Starboard beam
view of the former destroyer HMAS Quadrant (fo1) after her conversion to
an anti submarine frigate. Externally her destroyer origins are
indicated only by her funnel and hull as all superstructures above the
upper deck has been replaced. The ship's new armament consists of a twin
40 mm Bofors mark 5 AA mounting forward and 4 inch mark 16 guns in a
twin mark 19 mounting aft. Note the launching rails for flare rockets
fitted to the side of the mounting. The guns are controlled by the close
range blind fire director sited just forward of the 4 inch mounting. A
squid anti submarine mortar is fitted aft and is a distinguishing
feature of this vessel, the remainder of the class having the longer
barreled limbo. A type 277 height finding radar is fitted just above the
bridge. Type 293q air surface search and type 974 navigation radars are
fitted to the foremast.The
ship has not yet been commissioned and is flying the red ensign.
She is also not fully
fitted out, missing her mainmast. (Naval historical collection)

SYDNEY, NSW. 1941-09.
Starboard bow view of the
corvette HMAS Warrnambool. She is not yet commissioned and consequently
flies the red ensign. She is armed with a 4 inch bl mark ix gun on a cpi mounting
forward. No close range armament has yet been fitted. Note the
kite/otters and floats of her oropesa minesweeping equipment on the
stern. (Naval historical collection)